A family affair - Three chambers boats in Milford Haven for the Victor Search.
1850 – Present Day
Victor Chambers has been described by one retired Kilkeel fisherman as “The top skipper in Mourne during my whole time fishing”. Victor was part of a Chambers family who can rightly say they earned a worldwide reputation for their fishing exploits. The family hail from the small coastal village of Annalong, the oldest port in Mourne and has never lost its relevance as a maritime community.
In the late 1800’s Schooners were the main traffic out of the harbours carrying Potatoes and Granite. It was on these vessels that John Heaney and his Chambers Grandsons would start their maritime careers.
Due to the Silent Valley project schooners and coastal trade were the dominant industry between the World Wars. Whenever WWII was coming to an end in 1944, Jack and Victor Chambers purchased the ‘Charlotte Chambers’ named after their mother, and the family immersed itself in fishing once more.
In later years, the family moved into fish processing, opening the Kilhorne Bay Seafood factory in their own village of Annalong. Coming up to recent times, Victor’s Son William would gain the rank of Coxswain of the Newcastle Lifeboat. The Chambers family has covered many aspects of the Maritime Industry and their innovations marked them out as a family of real drive which kept them at the head of the fleet for many years.
THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN PART-FINANCED BY THE